Date posted: 16-Mar-2012

Date posted: 27-Feb-2012

Artwork for our Kokako Week event is now being delivered to the Island by our visiting artists a..

Turepo

Botanical name:

Streblus heterophyllus

Maori name:

Turepo

Common name:

Milk Tree

Height:

12 metres

This small tree is widespread in lowland forest. The trees are dioecious (sexes separate) and the very small flowers are massed into drooping spikes.

Flowering occurs from mid-spring through summer and red berries ripen on female trees from late spring to autumn.

Turepo has a juvenile form which has distinctive juvenile leaves (fiddle-shaped).

Turepo exudes a sweetish milky sap when twigs are broken or bark is cut.

Early settlers collected this and used it in tea as a milk substitute.

The genus Streblus has a widespread distribution in the Pacific, South East Asia and Eastern Australia. There are 3 endemic species in New Zealand, 2 of which are present on Tiritiri Matangi. The genus belongs in the mulberry family, Moraceae.